reframing femininity
Since our retirement seven years ago, my husband Jim and I have explored much of the United States. We have lived out of our RV for six months a year, traveling between points A and B. With each back-and-forth trek across the country, our realization grew of how much more there was to see. There…
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I started to lose you on Christmas Day. Never have I experienced such agony as my worst fear unfolded into reality. I didn’t understand what miscarriage could be—the intensity of the physical process; bodily desperation as my reaching arms tried to hold on, tried to save my child who is already gone; the depth of…
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One short block away is the beach. The soundtrack of the waves rolling consistently onto the shore travels the distance in the cool and refreshing tailwinds. Wrapped in a large beach towel, I notice the softness and warmth of its fabric and the vertical stripes of its rainbow colors. Sitting in the dark of morning,…
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In the late Sunday summer afternoons of Eastern North Dakota, the sun is already beating its way through our Ford Pinto windows and onto the black vinyl seats we are about to gingerly put our bare skin on. There are four of us who need to get into the car and, luckily, no car seats…
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Once upon a time, in the land of Israel, during the days of the Judges, there came a famine upon Bethlehem. A woman and her husband looked at their barren field and bleak options and decided to risk a move, praying for a chance to begin again. They would take their two sons to the…
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My heart felt heavy. My lungs felt empty. My mind couldn’t form a coherent thought. The loss was more than I had ever known. The hurt resonated deep within my soul.
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overwhelming loss…the safe care of anotherhope awakening Heather Medley is a woman who is learning to be present and kind to herself and to the people she loves. She is drawn to engage her world with hope of restoration and redemption and gets to do this professionally as a therapist. She loves deep conversations over…
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Victor and I are having lunch together when suddenly our conversation is muted by the loud rumble of a train. We feel the tremors of the building shake in response to the passing locomotive and wait for the train to pass. We have been apart from one another due to a season of unexpected hurdles…
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The sun is setting before the low-grade headache from another day spent on my screen fully registers. But now the muddy light of my apartment has sharpened the artificial glow of the laptop, and I can’t help but wince. Note to self: explore blue light glasses. A bit of self-awareness ushers me into my body,…
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If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is it’s way of fighting back,…
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